ok, his question specifically said "... to help when he goes to sell it." and carefully reading my original post i noted "... some significant historical provenance....". the W F & co gun in question obviously fit that criteria so you had good reason to want one. had your colt not been so marked you'd have had no reason to expect the letter to show anything out of the ordinary. it MIGHT have anyway but that'd have been a gamble. and likewise i also specifically said "...if the gun in question is a high end $$ item..." it's worth it.
so far no one has disagreed with anything i wrote, just what they percieved i wrote. and i'll stick by what i said, if the gun is a common standard in all respects run of the mill factory gun that is unaltered all the factory letter is gonna show is "winchester 1894 made in 1894 chambered for 32-40 with round barrel (or whatever) and shipped to such and such jobber in chicago (for e.g.) on such and such date" and that's about it. it's nice info but other than the exact shipping date and destination - UNLESS SOMETHING UNUSUAL TURNS UP as i noted in my first post - that letter isn't going to show anything that one can't tell from holding the gun in his hands and looking up the year of mfg of the serial #. is nice to have, is very neat, is very cool but if that gun is laying on a table next to #695 which is an identical configured rifle in same caliber and exactly equivalent condition and neither have particular historical provenance nor special order features the one having the letter isn't necessarily going to fetch a whopping big price difference and you'll be lucky to net the cost of the letter out of it over what the one w/o the letter will sell for.
